Apologies for yet another post but I’m looking for a circa £1200 do it all HT.

Bike is for the South Downs and always starts at the bottom so it might be a capable climber (for reference I’m quite happy with how my 2016 1×11 Trek Fuel climbs).

Also do a mixture of cross country and trails. No major downhill work, no major jumps/drops etc so focus is more on fun and speed.

I was looking at 2016 Crush Pro but not sure that falls under an all rounder?!

Also the Giant Fathom 1 2018 which seems quite XC focused but capable at Trails. Plus there is a Giant store nearby to try.

Thoughts? I would prefer to be able to try before I buy so that makes me wary of the Orange as no dealer local.

Ubyk in Brighton are an Orange dealer. I assume the giant shop is shoreham so not that far away. A lotof the demo kit tends to be focussed on the full suss >2k stuff in my experience, but i havent tried getting a demo on a hardtail for a few years. Quest in Worthing are worth a shout very helpful and a whyte ht might suit your requirements. They also do scott and cotic so may be able to organise something.

Sounds like you need an XC hardtail rather than something slacker/more aggressive

Also do a mixture of cross country and trails. No major downhill work, no major jumps/drops etc so focus is more on fun and speed.

That’s not really ‘it-all’ thats trail and xc so it sounds like you need a short / medium travel forked xc/trail bike of which there is much choice. Maybe a 29er?

Orange Clockwork rather than a Crush for that kind of riding…

Bird have got £250 off the Zero TR currently, so the NX version is under budget? Would need to add a bit for a dropper though, and they’re probably not “local” local to you.

Why not any of the previous suggestions on your other threads (genuine question)? Zero TR would suit, pinnacle ramin/iroko, the Marin in your previous thread?

I wanted to generalise my needs in one thread rather than lots of random ones. I should have just bumped one of them I guess.

superstu +1

Make a decision!